The Smothers Brothers at the Purple Onion
| The Smothers Brothers at the Purple Onion | ||||
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| Live album by Smothers Brothers | ||||
| Released | May 1, 1961 | |||
| Recorded | Purple Onion, San Francisco Tidelands Motel, Texas |
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| Genre | comedy, folk music parody | |||
| Label | Mercury | |||
| Smothers Brothers chronology | ||||
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The Smothers Brothers at the Purple Onion, released May 1, 1961 on Mercury Records, was the first album released by the Smothers Brothers and established their reputation as folk music satirists. The Purple Onion was a celebrated comedy and music club in the North Beach area of San Francisco that launched the careers of the Kingston Trio and Phyllis Diller in addition to the Smothers Brothers. The album's full cover text is: The Songs and Comedy of the Smothers Brothers! Recorded at the Purple Onion, San Francisco, and is Mercury catalog number MG 20611 (monaural), and SR 60611 (stereo). It is sometimes referred to as Live at the Purple Onion.
Despite the album's title, the bulk of the recording was in fact not made at the Purple Onion. According to Dick Smothers (quoted in the duo's biography, Dangerously Funny), the Purple Onion shows were good, but the tapes were compromised by technical issues, and as a result the only part of the Purple Onion performance that made it onto the album was the introduction. The bulk of the material was in fact sourced from tapes of subsequent performances at the Tideland Club in Houston, Texas, but because the duo was grateful to the Purple Onion for giving them their first break, the album was credited as having been recorded there.
All well known songs were rewritten for satiric purposes unless otherwise indicated. Phrases in quotations are from the liner notes.
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